When you are on the move, and in the process of travelling, can get no Wi-Fi connection, you definitely won’t be able to access any website from your mobile, tablet or laptop. In the world these days, we are connected to the Internet almost every time of the day, be it at work or outside of work. Without a connection, it feels like there’s nothing you can do. The best way to solve this is to spend time with stuff you can do without a connection – or make your materials accessible even when you are offline.
How do you access webpages on the Internet offline from your desktop, laptop, tablet as well as your mobile phone? In this quick guide, we will show 5 ways you can.
1. Read It – Read Now, Read Later
Read it is a Chrome extension, which allows you to access saved content from your mobile and tablet after saving the files to cloud. The best thing about Read It is that it only saves clean content by stripping off all ads and non-related content, so what you get is pure content.
To use it, go to the Read It extension page on Chrome and install it. Once completed, you will see a ‘Klip Me’ icon at the top right corner of your browser bar. Now when you browse any website and want to save the content for reading later, simply click the ‘Klip Me’ button and you will see a stripped off page with only relevant content on it. Click the ‘Save’ button at the right.
Read It only saves content and not the whole website, so when you open webpages that feature many articles in one page like a blog, for instance, chances are, you will not be able to save the article you want. But, you can still save the content of your choice by highlighting any particular content including images. To do this, highlight selected content with your mouse, and click on the Klip Me button.
Read It For Web
Now if you want to access the content you saved earlier, you can open a new tab on your Chrome, and click on the ‘Klip Me’ icon. You will see all content you have previously saved for offline access. To make this content accessible on your mobile, you need to integrate Read It with your Google account so you can save all of your files in Cloud. Click the ‘Sign In’ button at the right column and proceed to allow its access with Google.
When access is granted, your files will sync to Cloud, and you can now access these saved files from anywhere by going to the Klip.me website (but you will need Internet access for the sync).
Read It For Android
Alternatively if you are using an Android phone, you can download Klip Me app from Google Play, log in with your Google account and sync. The saved files will be stored to your device, and you can now read them even when you are offline. At the time of this test, Read It is only available for Chrome browser and Android. But it still can be accessed via web at Klip.me where you will be able to push your saved content to Kindle and other ebook devices. Soon, Read It will be made available as a Safari extension so do check out the site for the latest updates.
2. Spool – Save Video And Webpages
Spool is a new startup offering you alternatives to access your saved files offline. It has not only a web application and browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, but it also provides you with Android and iOS apps, as well as a bookmarklet so you can use the service on all browsers and mobiles. Spool also allows you to integrate your account with Dropbox so you can practically save not only web pages but other file types.
At the time of this writing, Spool is only available for Beta invite, however you can override that invite by registering with your Facebook login.
Spool For Web, IOS And Android
After registration is done, you can now head over to the Spool Tools page to install the extension for Chrome or Firefox. If you are not using either browsers, you can grab the bookmarklet and proceed to download iOS/Android apps to read your saved files offline on your mobile. The best thing about using the extension is that not only will can you save pages using the Spool icon at the top of your browser, you also have other ways to save pages: by clicking on the icon, or using a right click on a link or even on a page.
Even on some pages like Facebook, you will also see the Spool icon with options to save a link.
Making Spool Accessible While Offline
By default, after saving a page, it will be accessible via Web as well as your mobile apps with an Internet connection. To make your files accessible on your mobile while offline, open your Spool app > go to Settings > check the ‘Autodownload’ box and you would have allowed automatic download over WiFi or mobile data. The sync’ed files will be automatically saved locally in your mobile, so you can access them while offline. If you are worried about space, you can always delete these files after reading them.
3. Read It Later
Read It Later is another alternative you can use to read any web content offline. What makes Read It Later stand out is the integration with many other apps that are available on the market including Pulse and Flipboard. This makes it easier to save any content from other apps straight to Read It Later, so you can read these contents later even when you are offline. You can also import contents from Instapaper and Delicious. What makes it more interesting is the user collaboration towards making Read It Later a better product, with many external applications created by the users themselves.
Read It Later Offline
To start with, register for a Read It Later account and go to the apps page to download all the necessary tools including bookmarklet, browser extension as well as mobile apps. Read It Later is available for all browsers, as well as for mobile on iOS and Android. You can use all the tools to save files.
For offline reading, all files will sync automatically to your mobile apps so you can read them even when you are offline. However you can only read your saved content on your computer offline with a Firefox extension. To make your saved files accessible offline on your computer, install theextension for Firefox.
4. Readability
Readability is a beautiful application that is available as an extension for Chrome. It also comes with a native app for Android and iOS.
To get started, go to Readability website and register an account, then head over to the Apps pageto download the extension for your Chrome browser, as well as the app for your iOS and Android. There are also many other applications which integrate with Readability, available for download from the apps page. Like the others this app also syncs saved webpages to your mobile foor later reading even when you are offline.
5. Evernote
Perhaps there are many of us who are not aware that Evernote comes in handy for offline reading too. Evernote is known as a major note-saving application available across platforms and is also great for file-sharing and collaboration with friends and colleagues due to the free storage provided.
If you have not used it already, go to the Evernote page and register for an account. Then to make it easier for you to save a webpage content, download the Evernote Clipper or Clearly so you can save any contents easily to your Evernote. To access your saved content offline, download Evernote appsfor Android or iOS and log in with your registered account. Go to ‘Settings’, click on ‘Offline notebook’ and select any folder or file you want to make available for offline reading.
That’s it, and now whenever your Evernote syncs, it will make your selected materials available offline.
Conclusion
With these five alternatives, you can now save your web contents for reading while out fishing on a boat or if you’re flying without a connection. There are certainly many other alternatives including some paid options like Instapaper as well as other computer-only access options, but I’m sure we prefer the idea of freemiums with mobility access and great tools.
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